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Wednesday, June 20, 2007 |
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| ARCHIVE • 2007 • SUN 17 • MON 18 • WED 20 • FRI 22 • SUN 24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sherman Library & Gardens, Central Patio Room, 8 p.m. Music in the Gardens I Jennifer Foster, soprano Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Tania Gabrielle French (b. 1963) Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Intermission Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
The first movement is in the usual ritornello form, the orchestral theme of an upward octave scale recurring between playfully brilliant solo oboe passages. The slow second movement, in the relative key of E minor, allows some lyrical relaxation before the G major finale’s off-beat theme and exuberant Italian concitato passages (excitingly repeated 16th notes) in the strings. BACK
Bach’s only extant work with an Italian text, Amore Traditore (Traitorous love) for baritone and harpsichord obbligato, long assigned the Bach Werke Verzeichnis (catalogue) number 203, is not fully authenticated to be by him, but the harpsichord part makes a strong argument. It certainly is worth a hearing, and if the text is followed, can provide a few laughs about escaping the pain of unrequited love. BACK
This evening’s performance is the premiere of a new edition prepared for us by the composer, with the original keyboard part now for harpsichord and cello. BACK
Listen for word painting; for instance, in the section “Phoebus hastens with swift steeds” the continuo figure rears and prances with wide skips in the bass line, and the horses gallop in fast 16th notes. This cantata for solo soprano and instruments must be one of Johann Sebastian’s loveliest and most endearingly romantic works. BACK
Notes by Burton Karson |
ur
Festival’s continuation of the celebration of the one-hundredth
anniversary of the founding of the City of Newport Beach begins
with this evening’s performance of Bach’s Peasant
Cantata, in which citizens extol the virtues of their local
leaders and offer wishes for their future well-being. We shall precede
Bach’s product of civic pride with a jolly instrumental concerto
and various thoughts about love.
einichen
concertos have been presented at our concerts beginning with
our first season, offering not only American premieres, but according
to Darmstadt’s librarian, the first performances from these
manuscripts anywhere since the eighteenth century. This oboe concerto
in G major, like the others, is played from an edition made from
a manuscript found by this writer in the Archducal Library of Darmstadt
in 1981. It reflects the composer’s thorough knowledge of
the Italian style learned in Venice, where he lived and worked for
some years after he had given up his practice of law in Weissenfels
to serve there as court composer, then as opera composer in Leipzig
(where as a youth he had attended the Thomasschule under Kuhnau,
Bach’s predecessor), and then as composer to the courts of
Zeitz and Naumburg. 
uring
his lifetime, Bach was renowned as a gifted church musician
and brilliant recital organist. Today, his fame rests on his staggering
output as a composer: hundreds of church cantatas, masses, motets,
oratorios, chorale settings, harpsichord suites, organ pieces, and
concertos for various instruments. Surprisingly, this collection
of serious masterworks is augmented by more than thirty secular
cantatas in a lighter vein, three of which we hear this evening.
ania
Gabrielle French, a gifted American composer as well as the
wife of violinist Clayton Haslop and the mother of their young daughter
Clara, wrote To the Nightingale on commission from Festival
patrons Jerry and Bobbi Dauderman “to honor Burton Karson’s
eighteen years of dedicated service to the Baroque Festival Corona
del Mar.” It first was heard in the Dauderman’s Newport
Beach residence as part of our 1998 Winter Musicale, performed by
tenor Mark Goodrich, violinist Clayton Haslop, and pianist Burton
Karson. Its public premiere was on our concert of 22 June 1998 in
Saint Michael & All Angels Church, with the keyboard part played
by organist Thomas Annand. 
ach’s
Wedding Cantata, Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, probably
was written some time between 1718 and 1723, during his pre-Leipzig
service in the court of Anhalt-Cöthen, where he wrote only secular
music for a Calvinistic prince who needed no church music from him.
A wedding cantata, as entertainment during the reception after the
formal ceremony, normally mentioned personal aspects of the bride
and groom. We don’t know specifics about this occasion, but
the time evidently was spring, and we hear of the couple’s
happiness, scenes of nature, and their supposed offspring as the
flowers of love.
BAROQUE MUSIC FESTIVAL CORONA DEL MAR
Post Office Box 838 | Corona del Mar, CA 92625-0838
Tel. (949) 760-7887 | info@BMF-CdM.org
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